where they leave us

Have you ever experienced something so vivid, so lasting, so permanent that you can remember every second? Maybe it was a moment of success, a moment when you realized you were in love, or a moment of loss. No matter what your moment may center around, if you just close your eyes and get to a place that’s quiet enough, you can relive it.

I think that it’s those moments, the ones that freeze us in time, that truly shape us. The moments we keep going back to.

Today marks three years since I experienced my first “forever relivable” moment.

I wonder where you’d be right now. I wonder where you are right now. Are you with me as I write this? No, you’re definitely up there, busy being awesome. (I wouldn’t want to watch me blog either.) I do know that I sometimes see you. Whether it’s in the faces I pass when I walk to class, or the guy sitting a few rows back in a 500+ lecture hall that I happen to glance by.
I miss you and, although I know you’re gone for a reason, I still wish I could ask you how life was going or ask you for your advice on something. Because that’s what we did.

The point of this post is not only to remember my good friend, Spenser Nels Nelson, but to reflect on the idea that when something or someone leaves such a lasting mark on our lives, it can be hard to wrap our heads around it. We are left with this mind-blowing experience that we could be forever changed by a moment. That’s life though, a bunch of moments all packed into whatever time we have here. Open yourself up so that you can have these mind-blowing moments and you can soak them in. Even if they hurt, they are going to make you into the person you are supposed to be.